


Cupid-in-Training

by MycroftexMachina



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Future Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner, Gen, Other, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 02:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11980419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MycroftexMachina/pseuds/MycroftexMachina
Summary: William Nylander, matchmaker. An autobiography.





	Cupid-in-Training

For as long as he can remember, Willy has wanted to do one thing, and one thing only: to play hockey in the NHL, just like his dad did. Psychologists and other specialists might think that it’s unlikely this was really Willy’s wish, what with the role models he had and the life he led—undue pressure, they’d probably say, or some ridiculous things like that.

For Willy, however, it’s always been really simple. He wants to be on the ice, which calls to him like the sirens called to Odysseus—a reference most of his teammates don't get, because they are uneducated clots, victims of the American school system. At least, William is European, and he went to high school in Sweden, where someone thought it’d be a good idea to have him read the classics, even in an abridged version.

The point is, Willy wants to play in the NHL and he wants to be successful in doing so. Being drafted eighth overall to the Toronto Maple Leafs is a dream come true, even if he knows it’s going to take a while to make the team—his dad has been good about Willy not getting too ahead of himself in terms of expectations. Still, the draft is the first step, and Willy is very proud of himself for being that much closer to fulfilling his dream.

Playing for the Marlies is exhilarating. It’s not the NHL, but Willy’s getting closer to the prize, and he’s not afraid of working hard. He likes Toronto, he likes the organization and he likes his teammates.

Things get a bit crazy after the summer of 2015, when the Leafs draft Mitch Marner, and a blockbuster deal sends Phil Kessel to the Pittsburgh Penguins—and what the fuck is wrong with people?—and brings in Kasperi Kapanen.

Willy and Kappy bond over their Scandinavian roots and their love for ethnic fusion restaurants, something that other teenagers seem not to understand. They also spend plenty of time making fun—albeit without malice—of their American and Canadian friends.

Willy’s dream is finally realized when he gets to play his first NHL game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on February 29 2016—there is something very cool about the date, in Willy’s opinion. Soon thereafter, he scores his first goal, gets the damn puck for it, and delights in having finally made it, even if the Leafs are at the bottom of the fucking rankings. It can only go up from there, is what he thinks.

And it does: by some major miracles—though Willy suspects Babs performed some sort of human sacrifice and Kappy agrees, so there is that—the Leafs win the 2016 draft lottery, which means that Auston Matthews is coming to town. Unless someone in management has some stupid last-minute idea, which would be the most typical Leaf thing to do and Willy doesn't put it past them.

Luckily, the Leafs don't leaf, and they draft Matthews, which is cause of great celebration in the city. Willy is happy, because now that he’s made the team he wants to fucking win, for a change, and chances are, with Matthews they will. (It’d be nice if Kappy made the team too, but Willy’ll take what he can get).

The bottom line is: Willy has always wanted to be a hockey player and now he’s a hockey player and life is beautiful.

Training camp is awesome and the cohort of rookies that the Leafs have is so hungry for a spot on the team is not even funny. Willy observes the competition with critical eyes, considering who’s going to make and who’ll probably be sent back. That’s where his second career really begins, Willy will think much later: with him observing his teammates way too closely.

Auston Matthews is a no brainer, what with the massive rep and the invaluable experience he gained in Europe. Nobody in their right mind is going to tell him he needs one additional year of development or some shit like that. The fact that he smashes a panel off a pass by Marner on the first day of camp makes him even more appealing in Willy’s eyes, even if the guy is mortified.

Zach Hyman is a whole different level of impressive, what with the college degree and the book deals. Willy will be the first to admit he comes across as superficially vain—he likes his clothes, he likes his hair, and he has attitude in spades. But he is also smart, and it’s nice to meet a North American who’s smarter than him. It keeps him on his toes. (When he says this to Kappy, Kappy’s response is a snort and a shove. But Kappy stopped being impressed with Willy’s bullshitting abilities a while ago.)

Willy has known Connor Brown for a while, now, and he’s competition, but Willy likes him a lot, so he hopes he makes the team. It shouldn't be too difficult, because the guy could keep up with McDavid in the O, and he’s grown a lot since those days. Still, there are only so many available spots, and Willy would like one for himself and one for Kappy.

Mitch Marner will make it through sheer stubbornness. The guy was sent back to the O the previous year, and he went on to win it all. Willy recognizes determination, commitment and hard work when he sees them, and Marns has those in spades. The fact that he looks and acts like an over-enthusiastic puppy is just a plus, since it could be crucial in the locker-room.

The rest of the rookies are equally impressive, and Willy is optimistic about the whole endeavor in a way he quite frankly wasn't last year. Kappy might not make it just yet, but Kappy is not worried, and he forbade Willy to be worried, so Willy doesn't worry. They live together, so they talk a lot about this, and Willy can tell Kappy is at peace with things. But then, Kappy is as chill as Auston Matthews, who turns out to be one of the chilliest people Willy has ever met.

Out of camp and into pre-season, once the World Cup is done with and Bettman is seemingly satisfied with his little experiment, things heat up quite a bit. Both veterans and rookies are super-motivated, Babs is riding everyone ragged, and Shanny shows up here and there to scare everyone to death with his charisma and the record of his accomplishments.

Willy continues to observe his teammates, because nobody is a sure thing until they are, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer who’s going to stay on the team, and Willy wants to be one of them.

Babs puts him on a line with Matts and Hymie—Willy doesn't mind not playing center, he’s adaptable like that—and things just click. It’s like the three of them were made to play with each other, they’re that compatible. Rielly and Gards start making fun of them, but Willy doesn't give a shit, because they’re working out fine, which means Babs is going to keep them exactly where they are, on the Leafs’ roster.

Once that happens, Willy relaxes, but he continues to observe his teammates, still with a clinical eye to catalog who’s good at what. Marns turns out to be exactly the type of ‘feel-good’ remedy the Leafs didn't have in the locker-room the previous season. He’s always smiling, always joking, and he’s up to pranking the veterans even when Matt Martin threatens him with physical harm. Babs puts on a line with JVR and Bozie—which, good luck, Willy thinks a bit uncharitably—but the kid thrives on playing with the two veterans. He’s so fast sometimes Willy lose track of him, and his stick-handling abilities are beyond astonishing.

The d-pairs are struggling to click more than the forwards, Willy notices, which is ultimately going to suck for Freddie and Mac. Willy spends some time thinking about that, but not too much, because he’s a rookie and nobody pays him to give his opinion just yet, but it’s a habit ingrained by being the son of a hockey player.

And to be fair, he’s much more interested in looking at the forwards, rather than the d-men. There are things he sees that keep him more entertained than Carrick’s opinions on food—mostly wrong—and Zaits’ struggles with English—mostly hilarious. Indeed, there are things Willy sees that are kind of mind-boggling, but that nobody else seems to notice, which makes him wonder about the need for an IQ test on basic human skills for any and all hockey players. He has a heated debate about this with Kappy one night, with Kappy telling him that therein lays madness, and that Willy should mind his own business anyway. Kappy often tells Willy to mind his own business.

By the times late October comes around, Auston Matthews has already begun breaking records, Mitch Marner has been adopted by every person over 22 on the team, Morgan Rielly has made a compelling case for captaincy, and Willy is sufficiently confident in his own abilities that he knows he’s not going back to the Marlies—someone helped Matts getting those four goals against Ottawa, after all.

The team settles in a pattern of ‘win some games, lose some games’. Babs invariably yells at them whether they win or lose, because when they win, they usually let in an insane number of goals, and when they lose, it’s so bad they look like they’ve been playing lacrosse instead of hockey.

Yet, things are sufficiently stable that Willy continues to observe his teammates—more out of curiosity, now, than because they’re competition. So he considers the veterans, and he considers the rookies, but as much as he tries to, his attention continues to be drawn back to two people.

Auston Matthews is everything scouts and experts claimed he could be and he’s a joy to watch. Willy bonds with him mainly for two reasons: they’re lineys and it’s very easy for them to pick girls up. Like, ridiculously easy. Kappy makes fun of Willy on a regular basis about Willy’s alleged loose morals—that what he actually call them, loose morals, like they’re living in England in the nineteenth century. However, Kappy is in a committed relationship, so Willy doesn't listen to him. Willy has done the committed thing, and now he wants a break, and women in Toronto are more than happy to oblige.

As much as Willy attracts women like honey brings in flies, it’s nothing like what happens with Matts every single day. If Willy were an anthropologist—and yes, he knows what a fucking anthropologist does, thank you very much, Kappy—he would ask for a grant to study Matts in his second natural habitat, the hooking-up scene. (The first is the ice, and Willy doesn't need money to study that, he does it for free).

Matts in the wild is also a thing of beauty, in Willy’s opinion, because girls just throw themselves at him. And this is not Willy’s first rodeo, and he’s seen a lot of things and done even more, but there is something absolutely fascinating about watching a generational talent being wooed and chased by any woman under the age of 30 everywhere they go.

Sometimes, Willy wonders if McDavid and Crosby experienced anything like that, but he doubts it. He’s met both, and they’re lovely human beings and tremendous hockey players, but they have none of the charisma and appeal Auston Matthews oozes from his every pore.

“You sound like you’re totally infatuated with him,” Kappy observes one night, when they’re both home together, which is rarer than Willy would like. Willy has been recounting Matts’ latest adventure, and Kappy is as impressed as he is disturbed by the whole thing.

Willy laughs, because sometimes Kappy has the weirdest ideas. “He’s really not my type,” he says, and he’s not lying. He likes his guys, when he’s in the mood for guys, which doesn't occur too often, especially since he came back to North America, a little more pliant than Auston Matthews will ever be.

“Everyone who moves is your type,” Kappy tells him with a smirk, which is true when it comes to hook-ups, but Willy is not going to hook up with a teammate, and he’s certainly not going to hook up with a liney.

“You just need to see it, then you’ll understand,” Willy says, a proposition Kappy declines because, apparently, that’s for immature morons—because Kappy has somewhat the moral high ground on maturity all of a sudden.

Anyway, Auston Matthews is quite impressive on and off the ice, and Willy likes him a lot, and it looks like Auston likes him too, so they’re good. Matts is liked by most everyone on the team, to be honest; he’s really a chill dude who can be a goof-ball when the occasion requires. Sure, Brownie seems a bit intimidated when they go out together—Brownie doesn't pick up with the same ease Willy and Matts do—and Bozie and Mo are very keen on repeating the safe-sex talk more than once in both Willy and Matts’ presence, but overall Willy is very happy to be in a team with Auston Matthews.

Willy is even happier to be on a team with Mitch Marner, even if he spends much less time with him than he does with Matts. Marns is a fucking delight. The guy is always happy, always upbeat, and he has a seemingly inextinguishable supply of energy. Willy thinks that if someone could harness it, it could light up the ACC for an entire year.

Marns is a Toronto boy, which means he has inside knowledge about all the good places. He comes out with the boys as often as he can, but he has a girl at home that he’s quite enamored with, so he tends to hang out with the coupled-guys more than he does with the single rookies.

When Marns talks about his girlfriend, Willy is reminded of Kappy, who is equally effusive in his description of his own girl. It’s very cute, and it gives Willy hope he’ll find someone to love. He’s not in any rush—they’re all between nineteen and twenty-two, where the fuck is the rush? Yet he knows several hockey players who ended up marrying their high school sweethearts, and that might happen to Kappy. As for Marns, Willy is not so sure.

Anyway, Mitch is a delight, and Willy absolutely adores him, an opinion shared by everyone on the team, Leo included—which is quite something, because Leo doesn't like anyone. Sure, Marty gives Mitch grief for his silly date ideas and his questionable sartorial choices, and Hymie makes fun of Mitch’s provincialism—whatever that means, it’s not like Hymie can really talk, for all that he went to college. At the same time, however, Freddie and Mac let Mitch hug them, which is more they let anyone else on the team do. (Willy once saw Mac actually growl at Connor Carrick because he got too close to his pipes during practice; yeah, that happened).

So Willy likes Matts and his chill goofiness and his hook-up skills, and he loves Mitch and his dorkiness and his enthusiasm. He spends time with them and looks at them. He looks at them when they play hockey; he looks at them when they hang together; he looks at them when they coordinate outfits; he looks at them when Mitch trounces Matts routinely at CoD, because Matts cannot play the game to save his life. Yeah, he spends quite a bit of his time looking at them.

And Will can’t help but noticing that, as much as he looks at them, it’s nothing compared to how much they stare at each other. It’d be quite embarrassing if it weren’t for the fact that: 1. They do it surreptitiously, when the other is not looking; 2. Neither of them seems aware they’re actually doing it.

Willy figures this little gem out around Christmas time. The trip at Toronto’s Christmas Market and the Leafs Christmas party really help him a lot in realizing the ‘mutual admiration society’ thing Matts and Marns have going. There had been flashes before, but Willy had been busy with his own life, so things had registered, but only in his subconscious. Anyway, he realizes there is something there in December, and spends January, February, March and April trying to figure out what, if anything, should be done about it.

“Nothing,” is Kappy’s unhelpful advice. Kappy has been apprised of the situation since Willy realized there was a situation to be apprised of. Kappy also likes to tell Willy what he cannot do, so Willy ignores the advice.

“Of course I have to do something,” Willy objects sometimes in mid-March. They’re in the middle of trying to clinch a playoff spot, and things are a bit tense in the locker room. It hasn't stopped Matts and Marns from stealing a glance when the other isn’t paying attention. It’s actually gotten worse in the last few weeks—and Willy thought things would get better, what with the whole ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ deal that’s typical of locker-rooms the world around.

“No, you absolutely do not,” Kappy says firmly. “Has Marns broken up with his girl?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Willy admits.

“Then why would you think there is something there?”

“You need to see it to understand it, Kappy,” Willy insists. “They’re like twins separated at birth, or, like, soul-mates whose lives were cut short in a previous incarnation.”

“Are you high?” Kappy inquires, which does on occasion occurs, so Willy doesn't hold it against him.

“Not right now,” he says.

“And Matts is still sleeping with all those girls?”

“Yeah,” Willy confirms.

“There,” Kappy says triumphant. “That’s why you’re not going to do anything about it. Because they are not doing anything about it.”

“But …” Willy begins.

“No but, Willy,” Kappy says, shaking his index finger at him like Willy’s three and needs to be put in time-out. “If what you see is really there, and it's a big if, they’re old enough to do something about it without your meddling.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Willy huffs impatient. “They are repressed North American players. The last thing they are is in touch with their feelings.”

“They seem perfectly capable of having a love life without your input, Willy,” Kappy waves dismissively. “Let it go.”

Willy feels vindicated when Sosh gets injured and Kappy is called up to play on Boyle and Marty’s line. Kappy is not stupid. Actually, in Willy’s mind, Kappy is one of the emotionally smartest people he’s ever met. He walks into the locker-room, and not even the pressure of performing at 200 percent to help the team qualify for the playoff is enough for him not to notice what Willy has been telling him for the past three months.

“Dude,” he whispers in Willy’s ear during his first practice. They’re waiting to run some drills, so there is a lull and they can chat.

“I know, right?” Willy says with a proud smile, like he is responsible for the ‘Matts-and-Marns mutual infatuation’ business.

“Dude,” Kappy repeats, because he’s emotionally intelligent, but a moron nonetheless.

“So now will you give me more useful advice?” Willy asks while they’re waiting for their turn to shot pucks at Freddie.

“What, no!” Kappy exclaims, and it’s so loud Brownie and Carrick turn in their direction.

Willy waves at them with a smile and then hisses at Kappy, “Why the fuck not?”

“Because Marns is still dating his girl and Matts is fucking his way through North America’s female population,” Kappy points out.

“Kappy,” Willy whines, but Kappy is immune to his whining—direct exposure will do that to you.

“No, Willy,” he repeats adamant. “I get it, now, okay? It’s, like, so obvious I’m surprised nobody else has seen it. But it’s still none of your business, and there are other people involved.”

Kappy skates away when his name is called, and Willy stays behind, fuming because Kappy is right, but so is Willy, goddammit.

Ultimately, Willy decides to let it go. He lets it go in April, when they finally qualify for the playoff and do themselves proud by making it so hard for the Caps it’s like they won the fucking series.

He lets it go in May, while he’s in Europe for the World Cup—here it helps that he meets Mitch’s girlfriend, who is lovely and smart and funny, and Willy finally gets what Kappy was trying to tell him—it’s so much easier to dismiss people when you never met them.

He lets it go in June, because he’s got better things to do than worry about his teammates’ love life—and July and August fly by in pretty much the same manner. Summer time is wonderful, Willy is back with his family and all is well under the sun.

He lets it at the beginning of training camp, when everyone returns to Toronto excited about a new year, new teammates and old friends. They’ve got other things to worry about, and Willy is busy helping Kappy making the team for good.

Then, in September, two things happen.

Thing the first: Mitch gets dumped—he shares this tidbit of news at an impromptu dinner at Mo’s. Now, Willy’s the first to admit that it’s never easy to get dumped, but it seems to hit Mitch pretty hard. The only time Mitch brightens up is when Matts is around to cheer him up. And Matts, like the idiot-in-love Willy knows him to be, is around a lot to cheer dejected Mitch up.

Thing the second: the longing in Matts’ eyes after he hears about Mitch’s dumping becomes a permanent fixture, and Matts stops picking up altogether exactly one day after he hears the news. The timing couldn't be more perfect if Willy had orchestrated him himself, and when he tells Kappy, he does it with such smugness that Kappy throws the entire dirty laundry basket at him—Kappy doesn't like to be told ‘I told you so.’

Yet, as the days and weeks pass, and Mitch slowly recovers from the heartache with Matts by his side, nothing changes. Nothing. They begin the season, and nothing changes. They go out for dinner, and nothing changes. They play CoD tournaments, and nothing changes. By the time December comes around, Willy is of two minds about asking Babs about the human sacrifice thingie he’s convinced brought Matts to Toronto to begin with—Kappy advises against this as well, because he’s not a supportive friend. That’s when Willy decides it’s time to stop observing and start acting.

So: for as long as he can remember, Willy has wanted to do one thing, and one thing only: to play hockey in the NHL, just like his dad did. And now Willy is playing in the NHL, just like his dad did. This doesn't mean Willy cannot do a bazillion other things. After all, he is smart, adaptable, and capable of multitasking. And now, more than anything, he wants his friends to be happy. Since his friends seem set in making themselves miserable, rather than seeing what’s in front of them, it’s Willy’s job to fix things. If they’re thickheaded enough not to be willing to do something about it, well, no worries: they can be Willyed.

Willly’s going to be an awesome matchmaker.

**Author's Note:**

> The 'Davo and Threesomes' story is in the works, but Willy wouldn't shut up today. Since he doesn't talk to me often, I decided it would be a good idea to listen.


End file.
